Rosé
by NaturalEvil
Summary: Alone in that house, that big empty place with its hallways that were so dark and still, she tried to dull the ache of their passing. Forever mourning the premature death of the family that never got to be, wishing for what could have been, hearing the echoing laughter of her children, a glass of pink wine in her hand. She was the mother of sighs and sorrows.
1. The Mother of Sighs and Sorrows

Can a woman still be a mother if her children are born dead?

One with lips already blue, so quiet and still. The other just the same, hours later; her hopes having been strangled long before she laid eyes on his closed un-breathing mouth.

She was a murderer. She had killed them both. Her womb was not a sanctuary of growth but instead a cemetery, a tomb.

Still, in her taut-faced shock, she held them in her arms; cradled and rocked them as if they were alive and well. She shushed their silent fussing, smoothed and brushed the fine white hairs that would never get the chance to grow any longer. They would never know the pull of a hairbrush or comb, never feel the glow of the sun or the breath of the wind.

And she was to blame.

Later she filled out their birth certificates, her hand shaking all the while, her body all nerves and nothing. She knew that her script was hardly legible, but please just let her have this, since she could not have them.

Dante. Vergil.

She knew why she had chosen those names, from the book that her Beloved had read to her. His low voice, so animated and sweet as he spoke line after line. She remembered how lovingly he had stroked her swollen feet, how gently he had folded the damp cloth over her brow when the pain interwoven throughout her body would not let her move to do so much as smile in gratitude.

"Dante, Vergil," She whispered their names in a raspy voice that would know only grief from that moment forward, her eyes rainfall-wet.

"Happy Birthday."

* * *

The doctors, the nurses, the hospital itself were useless. She was told that any number of factors could have contributed to the loss of her children, or just as likely, nothing at all.

She listened, pallid and quiet, her hands crossed neatly over her empty stomach. Hating the human man who sat across from her and oh so casually described her tragedy as if it were an everyday occurrence; hating the hospital, and hating herself most of all. Oh, how she wished that her husband were there so that he could tear the sky open in his grief.

But he was gone.

He had left her when she had gone into labor.

Vanished, disappeared without an uttered word or an appropriate explanation.

She knew in the tangled webbing of her soul that he was dead.

Alone in the office, with a vacant womb and breasts engorged with milk that would go to waste, she wept.

* * *

She buried her children behind the house, under the apple tree that had been there for as long as she could remember. (In the shade, she did not want them to get too hot) She stood out there for so long, looking down at their little gravestones, smiling gently at the cherubs that were garland around the edges. The red poppies were whispering in the wind, saying the names of her lost loves over and over again.

She drank a glass of shimmering Rosé before swaying off to bed each night, just one glass, already half-empty before she even brought it to her lips. (She could not rest otherwise)

And late into the night, after a restless sleep she would wake, still dreaming of the needful cries that she was never given the chance to hear. "Mommy's coming babies. I'm coming," She would mumble softly as she groped to pull on her robe, their shrieking carrying on all around her, reaching out for her. Crying to be fed, to be held, to be loved. She would stop just as she draped the garment over her shoulders, everything around her deathly quiet in less than an instant. She would realize, with a sinking black heart, just how unneeded the gesture was.

Other times she would snap awake and think that there was someone lying in bed with her. The mound beside her taking the shape of a sleeping man, which would only be a fiction; a cruel trick of darkness and desperation. Pillows would tumble soundlessly down onto the floor the moment she reached out to touch them.

_Honey?_

_I had the strangest dream…_

She used to wake beside her husband, link her fingers with his and tell him about the magical things that she saw in her sleep. Endless fields of pale blue wheat, bulging clouds as pink as candy floss and almost close enough to eat; empty bird cages that hung from trees like fresh fruit. He would listen with closed eyes and a serene smile, kissing her knuckles again and again as she spoke.

* * *

She wandered about the property, a barefoot Ophelia clothed in black.

She would gather red poppies in fistfuls, placing the fresh flowers on the graves of her children each day. Always thinking about her hopes that they would have been gathered for _her_ instead; be it for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, or just because they were in bloom and smelled oh so nice.

"Thank you, Dante!" She would have said, giving him a kiss on his forehead before weaving it into her hair, feeling like a fairytale maiden all the while.

When those broken wishes surfaced, she tried to distance herself from her own mind, praying to nothing that she could extract such thoughts as if they were rotten teeth.

She performed ballet stretches each morning, turning and straining herself in ways that she had not done since girlhood. The fast ticking of her own heartbeat being her only living companion. She ate fruit and drank weak tea, vomiting it all back up the second she wondered if such a simple breakfast was responsible for the two tiny gravestones out in the yard.

* * *

Time passed and she watched the apples fall from their branches, crashing onto the ground where she left them to ferment in their sweet rot. The wasps came for them, eager for the nectar. She would sit, cross-legged and calm in front of the tombstones. A glass of blush wine in her hand, taking sip after delicate sip. The false fruit around her looking like animal hearts that had been burst open.

The wasps did not bother her; she sat so still, the touch of their wings unfelt by her skin. They crawled along the wrinkles of her clothing, up her arms and across her cleavage, hung from her hair like volatile golden charms, their stingers pulsing all the while. They flew and buzzed about in flight patterns that were jagged and unpredictable.

If anyone were to see her, they would think that she was meditating, asleep, or simply insane.

She could see her children, the little devils that they would have been, running around and catching the insects as easily as if they were common butterflies.

Three wasps tumbled down into her glass and she paid them no mind, drinking down the wine even as they struggled and drowned.

All of them drunk.

* * *

She tried her hand at painting again. She laid out her brushes and oils, she tied her hair back with a black ribbon and wore her husbands old shirt as a smock.

She looked at the open canvas and willed herself to create, anything. Anything at all.

She tried to paint a vase of poppies, with their bulging red petals and dark centers like droplets of Japanese ink. But nothing came out as it should have been, the petals looking wilted and as alien as witch hazel, the marble vase coming out cracked as if it were ready to fall to pieces.

She tried sketching instead, sighing as she propped the drawing pad across her knees, pencils, charcoal, and tortillons scattered on the floor all around her. (A mess that would have been inexcusable once upon a time)

She moved her wrist as if she were holding a wand, casting a slow and intricate spell; hypnotized by the movement of the utensil rather than what it created. One line and then another, long and short, short and long, the artists Morse code.

When she was finished with the sketch, she realized that she had drawn herself, or a version of herself at least. The same bewitching features, hair the color of sparkling champagne, but there was something different about this woman, something strange and almost devious.

It was the clothing that she had given this shadow, this Doppelganger. Black, (it took time for her to realize that her fingers were stained from charcoal) not the kind for mourning, but the kind that was for style, a preference.

Tight-fitting, immodest, naughty; all of the things that she, in her skillful reservation, could not be.

Who was this woman?

Not a mother, nor a widow, but a stranger. A potential who knew no regrets or lost love.

But she only smiled before closing the sketchbook and tossing it aside. If only it were so simple. If you could change your demeanor and shed your memories like a skin or a shell. A new wardrobe, a new personality, a new name, and with it all comes a new life.

Is that what she wanted? She did not know.

A new beginning...


	2. The Life of Picturesque Emptiness

"Will we be married?" She asked him one idle afternoon, lying under the apple tree, the blossoms twirling around and perfuming the air in the soft breeze.

Stretched out in the shade and formed like such a fine-looking man, he feigned sleep; acting as if he had not heard her. "Sparda," She said his name with a girlish impatience, thumping her hand against his chest in mock-anger. Demon Knight or not, she would not be ignored.

"There is no need for a wedding." He murmured gently, his silver eyelashes trembling slightly as he addressed her. She only nodded and did not know why she asked, for she already knew that demons never indulged in such superficial ceremonies.

Still, it had always been a childhood dream of hers.

Though they had no close friends to invite, and her parents had been gone for years now. Even if they were to go through with a ceremony, there would be no one there to share it with, save for the priest and the baby growing inside of her.

She sighed at the thought, and laid her head quietly against his chest, listening to his inhuman heartbeat that sounded like a swarm of oncoming locusts. She felt his fingers in her hair, combing through the flawless tresses.

"This is your bridal veil," he said as he played with the soft tips of her champagne colored hair, grinning sweetly all the while. "Far better than any veil ever made, any diadem cannot compare."

She felt a blush warm her skin in spite of herself, turning so that her face was hidden in his shirt. He had a way about him, every compliment he paid her, calling her his dearest rose, sounded fiercely original instead of laughably cliché.

He plucked up a fistful of red flowers that were blossoming at his side, and pushed them into her hand. "Here is your bouquet, simple and earnest." She looked up at him, at his eyes and smiling mouth. There was no way for her to describe it, how she felt both vulnerable and protected.

"And my ring?" She asked as she blinked slowly, her eyebrows raised as she held out her other hand to be adorned, crushing the flowers against her chest without realizing it.

"Ah," He said as he reached into the breast of his shirt in jest of forgetting a misplaced gift. "Not a ring, but something just as nice. Close your eyes."

She did as she was told, biting her lip as she heard a jingle of metal, and felt something slip around her head and settle over her skin, as warm as if it were alive and breathing. She opened her eyes to examine the adornment, held the pendant up so that it glittered in the sunlight.

"Oh," Was all that she could say, the word like a gentle gasp, her pale blue eyes hypnotized by the double-sided jewel.

"Are you frightened, love? Of our new life?" She heard him ask after a while, and knew what he really meant.

"Of my pregnancy? Yes." She felt his hand press gently against her stomach. "But of you? Never."

* * *

She awoke under the apple tree, lying in between her children's gravestones in a Christ-like posture, her fingertips ghosting each marker. With leaves in her hair and dirt in her mouth, there was an empty wine bottle lying shattered in the grass, as if she had thrown it in a fit of rage or despair.

Her brain and mind both felt swollen, her skull ready to split open with a sickening squelch. Struggling to smooth out her hair, knots caught her fingers like enchanted swamp vines, she groaned out a pitiful apology.

"I'm so sorry, my loves," She whispered to the finely sculpted rocks at her feet. As she stood there in the cool mid-morning sunlight, she swore that she could hear them crying.

She shivered.

The past was mercilessly black, the present was dim, and the future seemed even dimmer.

This place, these tragedies, had left a permanent stain on her heart; she could not see how she would ever feel at home there again.

_A new beginning._

So she left that house, that cold empty house.

(Her mind would ferment if she continued as she were)

She left it as she had lived in it, fragile wine glasses scattered in every room like tumultuous decor, numerous tubes of paint bleeding out their once vivid colors, pencils and unfinished sketches deserted on couches and coffee tables. Plates and utensils were left on the kitchen table, a bit of bread with cheese untouched on a checkered cloth napkin.

Only the room where her children would have been had remained immaculate. She dusted every little knick-knack, organized the bright colorful books, and picked bits of lint off the stuffed toys as if their owners were going to be welcomed home at any moment.

Possessed and as mindless as a marionette, she folded her clothing into her bag. A pea coat the color of cranberries, her shoes, a few books, some money and personal documents.

It was autumn, the sky a foreboding gray as she stood under that apple tree, the branches bare and thin, skeleton-fingered and dying in the cold. She spoke to her babies. She told them that Mommy was going away for a little while, but not to cry because she was taking them with her (they were always on her mind, forever alive in her heart) and that they would see all sorts of wonderful things out in the world. It brought her an odd sense of comfort, to lean over and gently whisper as if they were fast asleep in their crib.

Her husband's amulet, silver and gold, hung from her neck and over her heart; heavy and shining with its double-sided scarlet light.

* * *

Never for want of money, (her Beloved made sure that she was well taken care of) she traveled; privileged and fortunate.

In the unfamiliar cities that she passed through, to unfamiliar people, she introduced herself with a false vigor and tired lukewarm smile. She saw new faces and learned new names, which quickly smeared into the one true constant of her nomadic life. All of them being new, none of them making any lasting sort of impact. None of them ever getting close enough to be referred to as 'friend'.

She preferred it this way, with how things had turned out.

Everywhere she found herself, she walked and waited and watched; took her time with everything she did and knew not why.

In her new life, she would browse various book shops and boutiques, dine alone in restaurants on nothing but rare-cooked meat and dark chocolate confections, a glass of pallid pink wine always within reach.

She read Shakespeare and William Blake in bakeries, taking in the sweet smells of sugar and bread as she waited for her pastries to bake. Crisped brown dough rolled into crescent rolls, filled with fresh strawberries and glazed with a cream cheese icing; her favorite type of dessert, a comfort food that she had craved all throughout her failed pregnancy.

In fanciful hotels, she slept on cool silk sheets with crystal chandeliers chinking above her, sprawled out and sighing up into the darkness. And still she was not free from pain.

She would still hallucinate her husband lying at her side, snoring or mumbling in his sleep with his dazzling sharp teeth; or her children, (older in these fantasies) troubled by nightmares and other imaginary horrors, crawling into bed with her for the comfort she could give them.

_Mom? Mommy?_

Unwanted memories pushed their way back into her life without her permission, of her Beloved holding her round stomach in his hands, praising the strength of their children with every tiny kick that he felt.

"I'm going to be a father," Was all that he could say during those times, a naked excitement making his skin glow like a peach that was too eager to ripen. "My Love, we're going to be a family,"

Oh,

Oh no,

Dear, that's not what happened at all.

Only in the dark mornings, and almost against her will, she would imagine how her two sons could have been. When doing the most mundane things, from showering to dressing herself, she would assign only the best parts of herself and her husband to them. Her highest hopes and most delicate dreams, given to two dead boys with hair the color of ice-cold moonlight.

Dante, for whatever reason, she was convinced that he would have been the mischievous one; the problem child. Forever impish, he would be an instigator, both violent and loving. The sort of child who would insult his brother for every detail, from his way of dress to his physical looks. Not only the type that would call the kettle black but to also gloat as he did so.

And Vergil, he would be the opposite. (As she imagined that twins often were) Perhaps he would have been more like how she was when she was a young girl. A withering violet. Quiet, thoughtful, bookish, and a little too shy for anyone's liking. She would do as her mother had done and urge him to smile more, just a little bit? Please? Laughing gently as she would smooth his hair away from his eyes, telling him that he had such a handsome face.

A love martyr, she would have given up her entire life if it meant that her children could have lived.

* * *

Capulet.

A city not unlike the Red Grave that she had left.

Her move there was impulsive, she knew nothing of the place, only that she liked the sound of it – striking a romantic chord on her heartstrings.

A modest apartment was more than enough for her, one bedroom and one bathroom. Though during those dark and quiet times it seemed too large for her even then; the walls and hallways stretching out to look as spacious and wide as an unknown palace.

The years passed by and she went out for a walk one day, the streets of the city becoming more and more familiar to her. Before her she had seen a couple walking arm in arm, a man and a woman. Their daughter, a little girl with a dark head of pretty hair, played imaginary hopscotch not far in front of them. She looked to be a few years younger than her boys. If they had ever met, what would she have been to them? A playmate, an enemy, or a sweetheart?

_Love her_, she wanted to say to her parents. _Love and cherish her with everything that you have._

* * *

Today was the day; their special, special day.

Their birthday and death day.

A means of celebration in a kinder life, and an elegy in this one.

Still, dead or not, she had to do something special.

She would do something special.


End file.
